Am quite happy to be blamed for this. Marvelous stuff, lady. You built up all this layered translucent emotion beforehand, then cut it in half and flashed El and Ajedrez's centers to the world. And you did it in a simple little moment of flirtation, which feels sarcastically genuine and utterly natural to both characters. El's seeing ghosts shading over Ajedrez, and she's seeing futures draped over him. But they both smile at it, because they've grown too jaded to do anything else, to know anything else.

And the ending? Just snapped things into place. Much, much thanks.